But why is anyone surprised, much less upset, to discover that people are putting this new medium to crass commercial use? Did that ever happen to the printing press, to radio, to television? Well, yeah, sometimes.

If these kinds of sites are really devoid of value, people will figure that out and these sites will go away. More likely they will always be out there, getting their share of the available revenue, providing some minimal service to their advertisers and the people who choose to visit them for information about real estate.

Oh, this is going to get Jeff pissed off at me. But, why did Advance create cookie-cutter mostly commercial entitiy-vibed sites when they had the chance to build true-blue community sites with local flair and personality? See http://www.advance.net and go to the local sites.

Oh, dees guys coulda been contendas — and after all that hard work in Jersey City the early days.

Right of Center

I know this will fall on the deaf ears of Jeff (attack-on-national-tv-a-book-I’ve-never-read) Jarvis, but so what? Isn’t content king? So if this site provides a community service which takes off and is actually used by people, so what if it is an ad for a real estate company? The site seems pretty empty so who cares if a dead site is read by no one? You do know that advertising pays for NBC shows right?

Gray_

Hmm, just a guess – Carson City Schrantz = Carson Fire?
Well, you’re right, that’s not fair play and it couldn’t happen to a nicer person :P Maybe next time he’ll vote for a party that isn’t in bed with crooks.

Gray_

“attack-on-national-tv-a-book-Iâ€™ve-never-read”
IoC, could you give some more details, pls?